Chapter Twenty

Colton hid his disappointment when the two boys showed up. He’d almost hoped Kenny, and his accomplice, Braden, would have bailed, so he could pack up and go back home.

But there they were. Future bench warrants, eager to serve their time so they could move on to their next stellar idea.

“We’re really sorry about your house, Mr. Willis,” Braden said.

“Just my house? Are you sorry about the other houses you hit with eggs?”

“Oh, yeah. For real sorry about that.”

Good. For real sorry. He refrained from rolling his eyes as he gestured toward the boxes in the middle of the room. The desks had all been moved to one side to make room to work.

“You’re going to put those shelves together.”

“Sweet. Do we get to use power tools?”

“No. You get to use the scrench that comes with it.” Colton held up the hybrid screwdriver-wrench device and handed it over to Kenny. Braden had already started rooting through the parts and was laying everything out.

This might not take that long, after all.

“Uh, Mr. Willis?” Kenny said while digging through the packing materials.

“Yeah?”

“There aren’t any instructions.”

“Oh, I know. I have them. Don’t worry. If you do it wrong, I’ll be sure to let you know, and you can take it apart and start over. It probably won’t take you smart lads that many attempts.”

They stood gaping for a moment, probably Colton’s only moment of pleasure for the day until he got home.

Unless Angel was gone when he got home. He should have bought a telephone to plug in so he could call her. Did they still make telephones that plugged in? He could just imagine the look on the kid’s face who’d assisted him through the laptop purchase when he asked for a plug-in phone.

It didn’t matter if he had a phone or not. He couldn’t keep her there if she decided it was too risky to stay. He just had to hope he’d survive it when she left. Because one thing was for certain. Whether it was today, someday next week, or a month from now, Angel Larson was going to leave him again.